


Coddling

by unsettled



Category: Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-28 16:16:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/309708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unsettled/pseuds/unsettled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What is it, my dear?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coddling

The butler whispers in his ear when he arrives home; he sighs, and turns his feet to the parlor instead of the comfort of his office. It's no use putting it off.

She's waiting for him, fretting, her delicate hands twisting a fine embroidered handkerchief into knots. When she hears his footsteps, she turns, wide eyed, as though frightened, startled, as though she is some wild creature at bay. Pale eyes, pale wispy eyes of some indistinguishable color between grey and grey, and pale skin to go with it, and pale hair - she is a watercolor of a person, washed out and nothing more than bare lines. She stands, flutters, her hands working at the air - the handkerchief has fallen from her hands to the floor, where he'll have to pick it up - a nervous trembling setting her clothing to whispering. "Oh, my lord," she says, her voice weak and nervously taut. "My lord," she says again, and her eyes begin to fill with tears.

He sighs. Stoops down to retrieve the wayward handkerchief, and she flinches away as though he were going to stab her. He presses it into her hands, and she raises it, tremulously, to dab at her eyes. "What is it, my dear?"

"Those girls, those poor girls, oh, those girls. I can't get them out of my head, I just can't, I can't! It's shocking, and how do they say they will protect us? They don't! They can't! if they can sneak in and snatch those poor girls from their bedrooms, from the bedrooms of the rich, the titled, the upper class - if they can do that, then how can we protect ourselves? I'm so afraid, I'm so afraid, oh, my lord, I can't sleep, I don't know what to do, what if they come for me?"

He places his hands on her shoulders, stilling her short, brittle steps. "No one is going to come for you, my dear. I promise, no one will get to you. You are perfectly safe here. I know, I know, you can't really help it, but we've discussed this before. All this fretting, it isn't good for you, it isn't good for your poor nerves." She nods, slumps slightly. "Why don't you just go on upstairs and take some of your medicine? We don't want a repeat of the last time things got out of hand, now do we?"

She shakes her head, mute. He kisses her on the forehead, gently. "Now go along, be a good girl."

He does not turn to watch her go. She is a silly girl, to be sure, but it does no harm to pamper her a little bit. For whatever little bit she is on this earth, frail thing.

He is truthful to her, when he says they will not come for her. She is quite well protected by his status, by his connections; none would dare harm his meek little wife, even if it is widely rumored that a wife is not what he wishes in his bed. She's a sweet enough thing, if short on brains and sense, and he doesn't half mind having something as simple and light as her in his life.

Coward sighs, once more, and retires to his office. Besides. Henry has mentioned having a use for his wife after they have won.

 


End file.
